Where would we be without the artists? It’s them we look to in times like these. They provide us with beautiful art, a unique perspective, a fun distraction, or just a silly work of art that will make you want to rewatch an old favourite Disney movie. Marco the Artist is a graphic designer based in LA and he’s been spending his quarantine being creative. His reimagined versions of Lion King characters will really make you see Lion King in a new way. Unless you’re already one of those people who have crushes on cartoon characters.
We all fancied Simba as kids, but Marco’s humanlike versions of the characters really take that crush to a whole new level. He says he’s pretty surprised with the response he got. He was inspired to create these artworks when he was watching a Japanese anime on Netflix called Beastars. It’s all about these humanlike animals and there’s a specific group of lions in the show and that’s what made him think of Lion King. He also cited the classic Disney cartoon TaleSpin as a big inspiration too.
It takes Marco up to 6 hours to create one character from start to finish but a lot of that time is spent on research. He first picks the character and then starts to imagine what kind of style they would have if they were humanlike, what they would wear, how they would hold themselves.
Then he researches a lot of references online and also rewatches the Disney movie to pause and memorise their facial expressions and get into the right frame of mind. Marco even goes as far as to take photos of himself standing in the position he wants his characters to be, to get the reference right and make them look as believable as possible.
The results speak for themselves. People have been liking and reposting Marco’s artwork like crazy. And a lot of people are sending him some hilarious and slightly inappropriate comments that have to do with their attraction to a certain character he drew. Many are joking that they never knew they were a furry until they saw this art. It’s funny but also, you can’t look at Marco’s version of Simba and Scar and not think they have “daddy” energy about them.
Marco just laughs it off and says he’s glad that in these weird times he’s able to bring something positive into the world and give the people something to look forward to. And people do look forward to his next post. Many are suggesting more characters for him to draw and Marco is happy to oblige. His plan is to continue creating similar artworks, do more Lion King characters, and maybe eventually even break out of the Lion King world.